‘Obama’s Race to the Top Agenda’
States Under Republican Leadership Fall For the Carrot: Children Sold-Out for a Profit
Part 1
by Anita B. Hoge
The Next Generation Schools
It’s easier to understand an agenda with a picture. A picture is worth a thousand words. The following graph was used in a power point presentation about how the Innovation Lab Network will change and redesign how American schools will function in the future. This is a ‘Race to the Top’ education model. The graph was taken from a power point presentation from the Stupski Foundation, the OECD, the international Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, with a grant from the Chief State School Officers, CCSSO, about the Next Generation Schools, called the Innovation Lab Network.
These are the original states that are included in this pilot research project from Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ -Maine, West Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, Kentucky, and Ohio. Race to the Top was funded from the Recovery Act with $400 billion dollars. Since that time waivers have been given to states that need flexibility in using their Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) funding In the “No Child Left Behind” legislation to move toward this model since the current Congress has not passed a budget. More states are involved at this time. The most profound concept in this graph shows how the next generation school will eliminate representative government Notice that the new system bypasses the community, governance, and finance. Draw your attention to the blue lines that are most important to this agenda. They are: your child, called human capital, assessment which is testing, technology, and any time and any place. Testing and technology become the most important part of this agenda to create the human capital of the future for the international global workforce.
How will abolishing representative government work? In order for this graph to become a reality, there are three barriers that must be removed. Community; families, parents, and churches must have no options or legal authority, only a choice of which school to send their children; Governance; your locally elected school board or other elected local or state officials that could become a hindrance will be eliminated or reduced to minor functions: parents will not have any voting power over a for-profit charter school; Finance; the neighborhood school no longer depends on your local tax base to fund schools under equality or leveling the field. The mantra that will be quoted is, under fairness and equity there should not be rich school districts or poor school districts, only schools. Your tax money will be pooled regionally or toward a county base to be distributed equally for each child. Federal funds will now fund individual students. Your elected school boards will no longer have the tax base from which to run their school. Your local neighborhood school will eventually be pushed out through academic bankruptcy and/or taken over by charter schools.
This is the new model for school choice. Federal monies, ESEA Title I, is being changed in new laws being proposed that will follow the individual child and the Individual Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will change the definitions of who can receive funds to include any child not meeting Common Core Standards (CCS) in an Individualized Education Program (IEP), individual education plan similar to the special education plans for handicapped children. This will mean ANY and EVERY child can receive choice money to go to the school of their choice. The entry point solutions are the end results or the child meeting government Common Core Standards and what must be done to achieve these goals. This is a design down program, start with what the government wants and work backwards….what a child will know, do and be like, or beliefs, values and actions….Blooms taxonomy, the whole child theory.
This graph from the Next Generation Schools, Race to the Top agenda, spells out how to mold the child toward those objectives. It shows how representative government, as well as parents, will be erased from any authority in educating their children or how the schools of the future will function through a computerized monopoly of selected profit making corporations, otherwise known as corporate fascism.
This is the model for for-profit Charter Schools that use public taxpayer funds with no elected school boards or taxpayer accountability and this is the model for the takeover of all education in America including private schools. Private schools are included because, when these stipends are given to each child under Choice from Title I which is being proposed in the new ESEA legislation in the federal budget supported by Republican Congressmen and Senators, Republican governors and unknowingly by many conservative groups, any child accepting that federal stipend to go to a charter, private, Catholic, Christian, home school, or other school, will be mandated under accountability, to take federal testing to meet the federal standards. Many tests are being aligned to the Common Core Standards using federal objectives from National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test item banks already validated to meet government goals. Inevitably this will control all education in the United States if you take the money. The CCSSO has had model legislation waiting in the wings for years. Perhaps we can ask why Governor Jeb Bush is in Maine pushing his Charter school agenda with his ”Foundation for Excellence in Education” that is widespread in Florida? Legislation in Michigan, under Republican leadership, House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 would expand a separate and statewide school district Education Achievement Authority (the EAA) overseen by a governor-appointed (unelected) chancellor and functioning outside the authority of the State Board of Education or state school superintendent. These schools are exempt from the same laws and quality measures of community-governed public schools. The EAA can seize unused school buildings (built and financed by local taxpayers) and force sale or lease to charter, non-public or EAA schools. This is proof that there is some truth to an agenda of eliminating representative government.
Look at the corporations that are flooding into these states to get contracts and compare them to who has access to the personal data explained below. Research to create these individual models for individual children with individual needs to meet Common Core Standards has attracted big business. Big money is being made and businesses are lining up at the door to get their share. But at what price? The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, (PARCC), a testing organization just applied for 501(c)(3) non-profit status which allows easy access to individual data under Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Link Smarter Balanced is another through Educational Testing Service, (ETS). American College Testing, (ACT), Pearson Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Wireless Generation who already are feeding at the federal data trough. Republican governors have been hoodwinked into an agenda that is racing toward ending representative government and school as we know it.
Obama unlocks data, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act OF 1974 (FERPA) is unleashed, and opens Pandora’s Box of privacy invasion, psychological manipulation, giving data for free to organizations to make a profit, and falsely using children in research unknowingly to parents, school boards, and legislators. The “learning genome,” which means testing and teaching the whole child, is not just about academics.
This is top news yesterday out of New York: Experts, Parents, Lawmakers Blast Database Providing Personal Student Information To Vendors March 14, 2013 1:45
NEW YORK (CBS New York/AP) –” A new national database that compiles personal student information for educational companies that contract with public schools is being blasted by privacy experts. In turn, Bloom reportedly plans to put this private information on a data cloud and share it with for-profit vendors. The
information will include personally identifiable information, including student names, test scores, grades, home addresses, email addresses, linked to grades, test scores, disciplinary and arrest records, special education status, race, economic status and health conditions, according to Class Size Matters, a non-profit organization that advocates for class size reduction in NYC’s public schools.” This is only the beginning.
Obama “unlocks” data by issuing FERPA’s new regulations that were promulgated without congressional authority, now allowing written agreements with outside vendors to access personal data from the US Department of Education so that a plan can be developed. Each child will be evaluated as to their learning style and personality, strengths and weaknesses, not for the child to do the best of their ability, but do their best to meet government standards. This is for EACH and every child. “No Child Left Behind” has new meaning. No child will escape the threat of big brother forced on them through computer compliance programming. In January, 2012, in an Office of Science and Technology Assessment meeting, Obama names private corporate businesses that he has contracted with to make this government agenda become a reality. These corporations and businesses are developing systems, assessments, software, and curriculum that will be sold back to the schools and states when in effect, they get thee Next Generation Schools, called the Innovation Lab Network.
These are the original states that are included in this pilot research project from Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ -Maine, West Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, Kentucky, and Ohio. Race to the Top was funded from the Recovery Act with $400 billion dollars. Since that time waivers have been given to states that need flexibility in using their Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) funding In the “No Child Left Behind” legislation to move toward this model since the current Congress has not passed a budget. More states are involved at this time. The most profound concept in this graph shows how the next generation school will eliminate representative government Notice that the new system bypasses the community, governance, and finance. Draw your attention to the blue lines that are most important to this agenda. They are: your child, called human capital, assessment which is testing, technology, and any time and any place. Testing and technology become the most important part of this agenda to create the human capital of the future for the international global workforce.
How will abolishing representative government work? In order for this graph to become a reality, there are three barriers that must be removed. Community; families, parents, and churches must have no options or legal authority, only a choice of which school to send their children; Governance; your locally elected school board or other elected local or state officials that could become a hindrance will be eliminated or reduced to minor functions: parents will not have any voting power over a for-profit charter school; Finance; the neighborhood school no longer depends on your local tax base to fund schools under equality or leveling the field. The mantra that will be quoted is, under fairness and equity there should not be rich school districts or poor school districts, only schools. Your tax money will be pooled regionally or toward a county base to be distributed equally for each child. Federal funds will now fund individual students. Your elected school boards will no longer have the tax base from which to run their school. Your local neighborhood school will eventually be pushed out through academic bankruptcy and/or taken over by charter schools.
This is the new model for school choice. Federal monies, ESEA Title I, is being changed in new laws being proposed that will follow the individual child and the Individual Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will change the definitions of who can receive funds to include any child not meeting Common Core Standards (CCS) in an Individualized Education Program (IEP), individual education plan similar to the special education plans for handicapped children. This will mean ANY and EVERY child can receive choice money to go to the school of their choice. The entry point solutions are the end results or the child meeting government Common Core Standards and what must be done to achieve these goals. This is a design down program, start with what the government wants and work backwards….what a child will know, do and be like, or beliefs, values and actions….Blooms taxonomy, the whole child theory.
This graph from the Next Generation Schools, Race to the Top agenda, spells out how to mold the child toward those objectives. It shows how representative government, as well as parents, will be erased from any authority in educating their children or how the schools of the future will function through a computerized monopoly of selected profit making corporations, otherwise known as corporate fascism.
This is the model for for-profit Charter Schools that use public taxpayer funds with no elected school boards or taxpayer accountability and this is the model for the takeover of all education in America including private schools. Private schools are included because, when these stipends are given to each child under Choice from Title I which is being proposed in the new ESEA legislation in the federal budget supported by Republican Congressmen and Senators, Republican governors and unknowingly by many conservative groups, any child accepting that federal stipend to go to a charter, private, Catholic, Christian, home school, or other school, will be mandated under accountability, to take federal testing to meet the federal standards. Many tests are being aligned to the Common Core Standards using federal objectives from National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test item banks already validated to meet government goals. Inevitably this will control all education in the United States if you take the money. The CCSSO has had model legislation waiting in the wings for years. Perhaps we can ask why Governor Jeb Bush is in Maine pushing his Charter school agenda with his ”Foundation for Excellence in Education” that is widespread in Florida? Legislation in Michigan, under Republican leadership, House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 would expand a separate and statewide school district Education Achievement Authority (the EAA) overseen by a governor-appointed (unelected) chancellor and functioning outside the authority of the State Board of Education or state school superintendent. These schools are exempt from the same laws and quality measures of community-governed public schools. The EAA can seize unused school buildings (built and financed by local taxpayers) and force sale or lease to charter, non-public or EAA schools. This is proof that there is some truth to an agenda of eliminating representative government.
Look at the corporations that are flooding into these states to get contracts and compare them to who has access to the personal data explained below. Research to create these individual models for individual children with individual needs to meet Common Core Standards has attracted big business. Big money is being made and businesses are lining up at the door to get their share. But at what price? The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, (PARCC), a testing organization just applied for 501(c)(3) non-profit status which allows easy access to individual data under Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Link Smarter Balanced is another through Educational Testing Service, (ETS). American College Testing, (ACT), Pearson Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Wireless Generation who already are feeding at the federal data trough. Republican governors have been hoodwinked into an agenda that is racing toward ending representative government and school as we know it.
Obama unlocks data, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act OF 1974 (FERPA) is unleashed, and opens Pandora’s Box of privacy invasion, psychological manipulation, giving data for free to organizations to make a profit, and falsely using children in research unknowingly to parents, school boards, and legislators. The “learning genome,” which means testing and teaching the whole child, is not just about academics.
This is top news yesterday out of New York: Experts, Parents, Lawmakers Blast Database Providing Personal Student Information To Vendors March 14, 2013 1:45
NEW YORK (CBS New York/AP) –” A new national database that compiles personal student information for educational companies that contract with public schools is being blasted by privacy experts. In turn, Bloom reportedly plans to put this private information on a data cloud and share it with for-profit vendors. The
information will include personally identifiable information, including student names, test scores, grades, home addresses, email addresses, linked to grades, test scores, disciplinary and arrest records, special education status, race, economic status and health conditions, according to Class Size Matters, a non-profit organization that advocates for class size reduction in NYC’s public schools.” This is only the beginning.
Obama “unlocks” data by issuing FERPA’s new regulations that were promulgated without congressional authority, now allowing written agreements with outside vendors to access personal data from the US Department of Education so that a plan can be developed. Each child will be evaluated as to their learning style and personality, strengths and weaknesses, not for the child to do the best of their ability, but do their best to meet government standards. This is for EACH and every child. “No Child Left Behind” has new meaning. No child will escape the threat of big brother forced on them through computer compliance programming. In January, 2012, in an Office of Science and Technology Assessment meeting, Obama names private corporate businesses that he has contracted with to make this government agenda become a reality. These corporations and businesses are developing systems, assessments, software, and curriculum that will be sold back to the schools and states when in effect, they get the data for free. Some of those corporations are ETS, Pearson and Microsoft to name a few. (I have requested a FOIA request for all written agreements that FERPA has entered into, to specifically attain a list of all organizations, foundations, and businesses that are receiving Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for free to do research, testing, and curriculum development. I have not received a reply as of today.)
This next graph explains how the system will work. It’s not about academics, it’s about control. The Next Generation indicators and diagnostics are: equity based, higher order/deeper learning, authentic affective engagement, leading to narrow accountability and system redesign. The indicators and diagnostics are important toward creating a profile that will force human capital to mold to a prescribed agenda. What is higher order and deep thinking? Most higher order questions on a test will measure ” beyond text.” Beyond text means you cannot get the answer from information provided in the story. You have to give your opinion or value judgment. Affective testing is measuring attitudes and values. This is critical thinking which sounds good to the parents or legislators. These value questions are scored to a criterion or standard set by the state. Higher order and deeper thinking and learning will be psychological intervention toward prescribed government attitudes and beliefs. Authentic affective engagement will be the psychological techniques used and needed to force the student to change their attitudes and behavior toward workforce objectives. This is the re-design of your neighborhood school.
KJLN
